Exploring the Artistic Journey of Erica Mahinay

Erica Mahinay's artistic journey is characterized by a profound exploration of the intersection between gestural abstraction and phenomenological inquiry. Her work meditates on embodiment and material consciousness, resonating across cognitive, emotional, and imaginative dimensions. Early in her career, Mahinay drew inspiration from memento mori and still-life painting, which shaped her initial output. This foundation led her to hybrid objects reminiscent of Robert Rauschenberg’s combines, where painted elements transcended traditional pictorial boundaries, merging into sculptural forms.

New York Observer

Over a decade, Mahinay primarily worked with sewn silk, experimenting with transparency and exposing structural supports. This engagement with surface prompted her to view images as almost wearable, akin to identities or provisional states of being. Her renewed relationship with color, particularly through dyeing, ultimately guided her back to oil painting, where she discovered the transformative potential of color.

New York Observer

Mahinay's latest paintings utilize classical underpainting techniques, beginning with earth-sourced pigments like burnt sienna and burnt umber. This traditional process, reminiscent of 16th-century painting, establishes a chromatic foundation activated through responsive gestures. Mahinay emphasizes the organic emergence of each painting, which unfolds without preparatory sketches or predetermined plans, guided instead by a dialogue with previous works.

New York Observer

In her creative process, Mahinay channels influences from her mother, a psychiatric nurse practitioner who integrated somatic practices into her therapeutic work. She believes that movement and gesture carry experiences onto the canvas, fostering a trust in her artistic process. As each layer dries, the paintings evolve through a sustained relationship, often undergoing significant chromatic and structural shifts. Mahinay's works are not intended to convey specific personal narratives; rather, they reflect a record of experience and an inquiry into perception and memory.

New York Observer

In addition to her paintings, Mahinay has expanded her practice into ceramics, developing anthropomorphic forms at Cerámica Suro in Guadalajara. These unfinished lower-body fragments embody a state of observing and meditating, reflecting a poetics of the Informel that resists fixed classification. The sculptures, accompanied by disjointed arms holding glass mirrors, preserve traces of human presence while emphasizing fragmentation.

New York Observer

Mahinay's ceramics extend the scale and spatial presence of her previous explorations, engaging clay as a fundamental material. These works serve as contemporary archaeological remnants, charged with temporal ambiguity and resisting the virtualization of experience. They foreground the irreducible condition of embodied experience, where the act of making and sensing unfolds as a continuous, reciprocal process.

New York Observer

• “There was this kind of acknowledgement with painting and surface as an agreement between myself and the viewer,” — Erica Mahinay, Artist

New York Observer

• “For me, it produces a familiarity that the eye associates with looking through atmosphere, with light passing through space and reflecting back.” — Erica Mahinay, Artist

New York Observer

• “I wanted that body language to reflect a state of observing or receiving or meditating or taking pause,” — Erica Mahinay, Artist

New York Observer

• “Suspended between artifact and apparition, these sculptures surface like contemporary archaeological remnants charged with temporal ambiguity.” — Erica Mahinay, Artist

New York Observer

Erica Mahinay's artistic practice embodies a dynamic interplay between materiality and perception, inviting viewers to engage with the complexities of experience. Through her innovative use of painting and ceramics, she challenges conventional boundaries, creating works that resonate with the essence of embodied consciousness.

New York Observer